Lynchings in the US in 19th & 20th centurys (1 Viewer)

lancer said:
I must say that this thread has been very civil. I expected it to go downhill fast, considering it's subject matter. It is not a subject I care to comment on, but there have been good answers to the question. -- Al
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I'm not offended by this question...it has nothing to do with me other than it happened in a country where I live...

my people are immigrants to the USA...I'm a third generation Greek American...

you can't hold the majority of the populace accountable for something that happened 120 years ago...

by the way...our UK forum members were more than cordial a couple a months ago when I inquired about soccer hooligans...

isolated incidents don't represent the mind set of the majority...
 
mikemiller1955 said:
I'm not offended by this question...it has nothing to do with me other than it happened in a country where I live...

my people are immigrants to the USA...I'm a third generation Greek American...

you can't hold the majority of the populace accountable for something that happened 120 years ago...

by the way...our UK forum members were more than cordial a couple a months ago when I inquired about soccer hooligans...

isolated incidents don't represent the mind set of the majority...
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Well said.

Rob
 
Many of the older public buildings in the South still have two mens and two womens restrooms located side-by-side. It took me a while to figure out these are legacies of segregation when blacks were not permitted to use the same facilities. A very sad period in our history that extended well into the 1960's - over a hundred years after the civil war ended. btw; lynchings were not limited only to blacks. There was the famous case of Leo Frank. His story has been documented in movies and books:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Frank
 
Lynchings are what they are, a part of history.

I am sure in some cases they were justified in that they were a simple means of carrying out capital punishment on the convicted at the time, brutal yes, but part of the law of the land. We may not approve of the method, but in many States capital punishment is still the law of the land.

Yes, there were many that were not just also and for many horrible reasons. The South experienced the majority, but there were also an awful lot on the Frontiers and the West. We probably remember more of them from the Outlaw Old West and the "Lynch Mob" mentality of Frontier justice.

To me, it is a part of history, plain and simple.
 
tdubel said:
Lynchings are what they are, a part of history.

I am sure in some cases they were justified in that they were a simple means of carrying out capital punishment on the convicted at the time, brutal yes, but part of the law of the land. We may not approve of the method, but in many States capital punishment is still the law of the land.

Yes, there were many that were not just also and for many horrible reasons. The South experienced the majority, but there were also an awful lot on the Frontiers and the West. We probably remember more of them from the Outlaw Old West and the "Lynch Mob" mentality of Frontier justice.

To me, it is a part of history, plain and simple.
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Agree completely. It's all part of history. As I mentioned no one was immune.
 
I must say I associated them with the Old West (probably from a childhood watching Westerns)but had no idea of the hideous torture inflicted on Black people in the South, really shocking. Many newspapers and other civilians were outraged by these lynchings especially the more organized, brutal events.

Rob
 
I don't remember learning about this in school but I do remember it in westerns.I didn't learn about the lynchings in the south until I was a teenager.There was a movie made a few years ago about the lynchings of Italian immigrants in New Orleans around the turn of the century.It was made by HBO or Showtime.
Mark
 
Isn't there a lynching scene in Mississippi burning?.

Rob
 
There's the obligation of modern institutions that existed back then to correct a wrong done by that institution even if the people in that institution are long gone. Honoring treaties, contracts, or debts by a long lasting government or business for example.

Lynchings were extra-legal acts that can't be blamed on modern people. For example you can't blame modern Salem, Mass. for the "witch trails" as the institutions back then made amends to the families or survivors involved. People involved actually said they were sorry in public. Modern Salem holds that period as bad and honors the victims of the trials.

If modern Salem residents as a town or individuals praised the executions and further prejudice against "witches" then they would deserve any scorn they would get.
 
I was not taught about lynchings to any great degree nor the sick and perverted ways we treated many peoples - not to any great degree.

We were taught that lynchings were primarily a means of dealing with criminals in the hard to govern parts of the country as we were expanding and something also many whites did to black people as a means to control the black and former slave population.

But, again, not to any great degree. I think we learned more about ancestry history - France, England, Europe more than we learned about how we treated slaves and minorities. We spent extensive time learning about the civil rights movement.

It's truly sickening, isn't it? Generally, white people were more likely to get a trial than black. It was more populous out there due to the distance from the government. But put it all into perspective and I suppose these things were carried out all over the world.
 
My father was from Boston but served through part of WW II training troops in the south. While Boston was no treat, (early 1970s) he was appalled by the off hand institutionalized racism he saw in the South. His experiences never really came up in conversation until we all watched the miniseries Roots and my father spoke about what he saw.
 
Rob said:
I must say I associated them with the Old West (probably from a childhood watching Westerns)but had no idea of the hideous torture inflicted on Black people in the South, really shocking. Many newspapers and other civilians were outraged by these lynchings especially the more organized, brutal events.

Rob
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Yes, these are shocking as practiced by any group against any group and no region is exempt. As bad as these are though, the government practiced examples are to me even worse. Governments, even if so-called by the people, are not immune from their acts of atrocity.
 
On a slightly different but related topic I have just read a great book called "The Kaiser's Holocaust, Germany's Forgotten Genocide and The Colonial Roots of Nazism"
It is not much remembered but Goering's father was a colonial official in German South West Africa. At the time Germany was eager to obtain colonies in Africa and SOuth West was vacant, apart from the Herero people who occupied the land. Well after about 20 years of German encroachment the Herero rose up. The response was genocide. The Germans drove teh Herero into the desert and poisoned the water wells. Those that returned were kept in concentration camps where the mortality was about 80%. Many of the German troops who had experience in Africa formed the core of the right wing parties that eventually merged to form the Nazis. The bitterness of defeat and the experience of a war of extermination against sub humans was a heady and toxic mix. In the same way I presume the Ku Klux Klan took a hold on the SOuth. In a similar way in South Africa the defeated Boers went on to establish apartheid.
History is full of these unpleasant stories I am afraid.
 
Well, on a brighter note...
I am from the state of Washington in the northwest corner of the US, but I was stationed in the south for the last 7 years of my military service, ending in 1997. I had occasion to visit many areas of the south when I went on inspections of subordinate commands. Although I know that there is still racisim down there, the visible signs of racism were non-existent. We could go into public restaurants with the African-American member of our inspection team with no difficulty.
My mentor down there was African-American, and he was a senior military officer.
My wife (also a northener) went to high school in Arkansas. She attended a high school that was integrated the year she started, 1968. Although she got a myriad of comments on her "accent" and the fact that she talked too fast (normal speed for a northerner), there were no serious problems with the integration.
 
I worked in Georgia in 1998 for a small company south of Atlanta. I didn't hear or see any outward signs of racism in the short time I was there and I did see all races involved and getting along where I was working. You can't stop people from thinking something at all, but a society can get people to get along for a common good by law and by presenting as "normal" and good the idea that we should get along. Frankly does anyone want to hang around all day with someone that can only think about what they hate?
 
It's not just a "Kum Bi Ya" idea to get along. Persons or groups that promoted racism did it to divide people. If you could make a poor white vote against or even attack a poor black, it kept two poor groups from changing the laws to allow both groups to acquire property, and power. Several of the race riots in the early 20th century destroyed prosperous black communities. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsa_race_riot) Various laws and practices (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining ) kept blacks from investing. Today when you hear about "Political Correctness" it's often a case that a group that now has some political or buying power won't put up with old abuses.
As far as the Lynching went, the fear that the law couldn't protect you made people afraid to vote or speak up. If lynching someone could be presented as "OK" in enforcing a "higher law" than that further weakened a legal system.
 
Can't say I was "taught" this part of our history in public schools in the 50s and 60s but think it is now. I will ask my son when I next see him. It's general knowledge now. Have seen articles that report an extension of slavery thru the 1950's. African Americans were arrested on any pretext and the local police, sheriff, etc would "hire out" the convict labor to businesses.
 
I can't say that I read the book but I did hear an interview with the author of Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II .

Another aspect of jailing people is that it takes away their voting rights.
 
No, not swept under the rug when I was growing up in the North. It's a topic which so many Americans prefer not to discuss, however. When I taught African-American history, some of my students burst into tears when they saw photos of lynchings, while others became incensed. If you ever watched one of the last episodes of "Foyle's War," you saw American racism on British soil, with the tacit support of the British government. When my father was stationed in England with the 8th AF, he helped stop the machine-gunning of black troops by white Americans. NOTHING, absolutely NOTHING, can excuse such acts, nor should anyone.
 
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